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Ivan Dikic appointed as Max Planck Fellow

October 2018. The Max Planck Institute of Biophysics has announced that Ivan Dikic has been appointed a Fellow of the Max Planck Society for a 5-year-term. This includes supervision of a small working group at the Frankfurt-based institute. The Max Planck Fellow Programme has been set up to strengthen cooperation between outstanding university professors and Max Planck Society researchers.

Research in the Dikic group is centered around two major cellular quality control pathways: the ubiquitin system and autophagy. As such they provide protection against various human diseases and are involved in almost all cellular signaling processes. The group covers a wide range of expertise to reveal structure-function relationships. Recently, the Dikic group revealed a novel ubiquitination mechanism induced by bacterial enzymes upon infection of human cells. In collaboration with colleagues at the MPI of Biophysics, the group now aims to resolve additional atomic details of this serine ubiquitination. A second area of mutual interest is the remodeling of the endoplasmic reticulum via a process known as ER-phagy. Until now, very little is known about the mechanisms facilitating membrane targeting, bending and shaping during this selective form of autophagy.

In addition, Ivan Dikic aims to build strong links between colleagues at the MPI of Biophysics and the highly competitive cancer research programme at Goethe University. He is one of the founders of the Frankfurt Cancer Institute (FCI), which has recently received significant funding for a LOEWE center and a new research building.